1. Field
Certain aspects of the disclosure set forth herein generally relate to motion capture and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for using proximity sensing for augmented reality gaming.
2. Background
Body tracking systems have been progressing on two different fronts. First, professional grade “motion capture” systems are available that can capture motion of an actor, athlete, player, etc. with high fidelity for use by movie and game studios, for example. These systems are typically high-cost, and thus not suitable for consumer grade applications. Second, consumer grade game controllers have progressed recently from being based on button or mechanical switches, to being based on player movement detection. Since these are consumer products, the technology is much lower cost, and in general, much lower in the quality of performance as well. For example, in the Nintendo WHO system, low-cost inertial sensors can detect hand motion that is used to control the game play. Issues with the accuracy of this type of game control have driven the rise in use of camera-based motion capture. For example, the Sony PlayStation® Move system can use a camera to track a spherical feature on the handheld game controller; this input can be combined with inertial sensor data to detect motion. Furthermore, the Microsoft Kinect® system is capable of removing the controller entirely and can use combination of traditional and depth detecting cameras to detect the body motion utilizing the camera alone.
There are several areas of concern with current motion capture systems. First, these systems suffer from performance issues that limit the types of motions that are detectable and that limit the types of games and user interactions that are possible. For example, camera systems only work on things that are in the field of view of the camera, and that are not blocked by objects or people. Second, camera augmentation systems are constrained to operating in an environment where a stationary camera can be mounted and installed—most commonly in a living room or a den. Further, current camera systems used for human body motion capturing are neither scalable nor capable of being used effectively in outdoor environments due to several limiting factors including, but not limited to, occlusion, frequency interference, and weather/lighting conditions. In addition, the use of large two dimensional (2D) touch displays for manipulating three dimensional (3D) objects or controlling vehicles is not highly effective and intuitive without the use of human gesture recognition.
Therefore, technology advances are desired to enable improvements in body tracking performance and to enable these systems to go wherever the user wants to go, whether these systems are used in a commercial or consumer application. Example commercial applications include accurate motion capture for gesture recognition in a variety of environments. Example consumer applications include mobile gaming between one or more players, and sports performance tracking and training, whether outdoors or in a gym. Further, there are many more potential applications for mobile body tracking that may emerge if such tracking technology is available at reasonable prices and sufficient performance levels.